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January 13, 2025
EPA Should Reject California’s Locomotive Electrification Regulation
The California Air Resources Board last November requested from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a waiver under section 209(e) of the Clean Air Act for implementation of its “In-Use Locomotive Regulation,” an effort to electrify the cargo trains operating in California and therefore across the entire country. As of early January, EPA still has not acted, a…
January 10, 2025
Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms I
2025 is already shaping up to be a year of change for many reasons related to the economics and technology of energy. Between the uncertainty arising from a political change in presidential administration and the dynamics of technological change in the economy, the only prediction I’d hazard is that change will happen. Some of these…
January 9, 2025
Meta’s Content Moderation Turnabout
Today, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it would immediately stop using “fact checkers” to police the content on its platforms, which also include Instagram and Threads. Meta explained: “In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content….
January 8, 2025
The Interests of the U.S. and the Honolulu Climate Case Before the U.S. Supreme Court
The Office of the Solicitor General — part of the Department of Justice —was created by the Statutory Authorization Act of June 22, 1870. The Act states that there shall be an officer “learned in the law,” to be called the Solicitor General, to assist the Attorney General in the performance of his or her duties. The…
December 17, 2024
Economics of Grid Defection II
Last week I wrote about the grid defection discussion circa 2014, motivated by Elisa Wood’s webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University on their new paper in Solar Energy. Let’s pick up the story from 2014 and discuss the research leading up to their paper. Evolution of the Research In the ensuing…
December 12, 2024
Economics of Grid Defection I
Yesterday Elisa Wood hosted a webinar with Seyyed Ali Sadat and Joshua Pearce of Western Ontario University, who have a new paper: The threat of economic grid defection in the US with solar photovoltaic, battery and generator hybrid systems(Solar Energy, November 2024). Grid defection occurs when electricity customers generate and store enough power locally to become fully self-sufficient…
December 6, 2024
Recombinant Modularity and Technological Change
In the past couple of weeks I’ve read two things I want to recommend that are actually deeply related. The first is Brian Potter’s excellent history of technology analysis of the evolution of the lithium ion battery. Brian’s Construction Physics newsletter is a consistently excellent treasure trove of analysis, from his series on the history of the electricity…
November 25, 2024
Politicization of the American University
Roger Federer spent 24 years as a professional tennis player. Roger Clemens played 24 years in the major leagues. And at the end of next month, I’ll leave my position as tenured, full professor the University of Colorado Boulder after 24 years on the faculty.1 Roger that! Leaving the faculty has motivated me to try to make sense of the…
November 19, 2024
Energy Realism and Climate Pragmatism at the Department of Energy
He’s a climate denier! That is the standard reaction of many in the climate lobby when encountering views on climate and energy deviating from the monomaniacal view that climate is the world’s single-most important issue. Reactions from climate advocates to the nomination of Chris Wright,1 CEO of Liberty Energy, to serve in Donald Trump’s cabinet as Secretary…
November 13, 2024
Global Existential Risks
In 2022, on a bipartisan basis, the U.S. Congress passed the Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act of 2022 requiring the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate an expert assessment of global catastrophic and existential risks. The Department of Homeland Security published the first Global Catastrophic Risk Assessment two weeks ago, and reached some important — and one surprising —…